Like one receiving pleasure from a dream,
his pleasure thus proceeding from delusion,
so does imagination with illusions
conceive in vain its happiness in me.
No other good's inscribed on my sad heart,
except what in my thoughts I might procure;
of all the good I ever have endured,
what lives is only the imagined part.

My heart is frightened to proceed ahead,
seeing that its pain in ambush lies;
and so after a moment it turns back

to contemplate those glories that have fled.
Oh, shadow of relief, that fickle flies,
to make what's best in me be what I lack!